Team PrEPnu

PrEPnu mission

PrEPnu started as a grassroots initiative in 2015. A group of men lost their patience with the lack of action from politicians and professionals, and decided it was time for action to make PrEP available in The Netherlands. While the founding group included representatives of other organisations (HIV Vereniging, Aidsfonds, COC, Poz&Proud), we always steered our own independent course. We still value our roots as a community initiative, not tied to any formal organisations.

PrEPnu aims to ensure easily available PrEP and PrEP-related care for anyone in the Netherlands who needs it. Our focus is on the LGBT community, primarily gay and bi men, because PrEP has the highest added value for them. However, our goals are not limited to this group. As a community initiative, we are mostly active in our community. We inform people about PrEP through outreach at parties and other events, where we provide basic information, and through workshops where we can go more in-depth. We also actively lobby with politics and professionals, helping them to establish a good official system for PrEP.

Easy access to PrEP is a very concrete goal, but it is not an isolated one. There are several underlying reasons why we think this is such an important topic. Of course, getting the HIV epidemic under control is one motivation. But another motivation is to remove the fear of HIV, which is a reality for many gay and bi men, and thereby increase their sexual health. Finally, we also aim to reduce taboos around the sexual experience of gay and bi men, and to fight against HIV stigma.

PrEPnu as a lobbyist and activist group:

PrEP­nu has always wel­comed coop­er­a­tion, and is will­ing to coop­er­ate with any­one, but we will also not be slowed down or stopped by any­one. We part­ner with orga­ni­za­tions such as Aids Health Foun­da­tion, GGD’s, COC, Hiv Verenig­ing, Aids­fonds and Soa Aids Ned­er­land, both in lob­by­ing and orga­ni­za­tion­al aspects.

Since 2015, we have col­lab­o­rat­ed with a group of orga­ni­za­tions and experts from the field of HIV experts who have been unit­ed in the “PrE­Pared” lob­by group. Work­ing togeth­er with this group, we have tried and are still try­ing to encour­age politi­cians to offer PrEP with the low­est pos­si­ble bar­ri­ers. The results of these efforts vary (“Brief Bru­ins”).

When the Dutch gov­ern­ment decid­ed to seek advice from the Health Coun­cil in June 2017 before mak­ing a pol­i­cy deci­sion, we spoke to the advi­so­ry com­mis­sion to clar­i­fy our views, togeth­er with Hiv Verenig­ing, Aids­fonds and COC. The Health Council’s advice to the min­is­ter can be found here.

Nation­al pol­i­tics turned out to be pret­ty reluc­tant about PrEP. Motions from D66 and Groen­Links ask­ing to make PrEP avail­able as soon as pos­si­ble often depend­ed on sup­port from the VVD, who then did not vote to sup­port the motions. Sources told us that many mem­bers of par­lia­ment still have a lot of bias when it comes to gay sex (even though PrEP is not only about gay sex). A peti­tion from PrEP­nu with 4349 sig­na­tures did not change this.

We achieved a small vic­to­ry when the Ams­ter­dam City Coun­cil decid­ed in July 2017 to make extra funds avail­able to broad­en the GGD Amsterdam’s InPrEP pro­gram. PrEPnu’s opin­ion was heard in the city coun­cil when the motion was put for­ward there (again by D66 and Groen­Links).

PrEP­nu has always been promi­nent­ly fea­tured in debates about PrEP, such as the debate PrEP TALK in De Balie in Sep­tem­ber 2016, and the PrEP Deba­cle in Feb­ru­ary 2017 in Club Church.

PrEP­nu is also involved with We Are PrE­Pared, a work­ing group of GGDs, fam­i­ly doc­tors, Soa Aids Ned­er­land and PrEP experts, who try to imple­ment the intro­duc­tion of eas­i­ly avail­able PrEP and PrEP-relat­ed care accord­ing to the Brief Bru­ins in the third quar­ter of 2019.

PrEP­nu has par­tic­i­pat­ed twice in the Ams­ter­dam Canal Pride. In 2016, we were on a boat togeth­er with Poz & Proud, the gay men sec­tion of the HIV verenig­ing; and in 2018 we had our own boat. PrEP­nu has also par­tic­i­pat­ed three times in the Pride Walk, the tra­di­tion­al open­ing of Ams­ter­dam Pride. Well known drag queen Jen­nifer Hopelezz (also a mem­ber of PrEP­nu) was the ambas­sador for Ams­ter­dam Pride 2018, and used her ambas­sador­ship to put and keep PrEP on the map.

PrEP­nu had a big suc­cess in talk­ing to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies and phar­ma­cies in 2017 about PrEP, result­ed in a price reduc­tion for PrEP.

PrEPnu Community Outreach:

PrEPnu’s vol­un­teer team comes to large par­ties and events to inform the gen­er­al pub­lic about PrEP, espe­cial­ly tar­get­ing poten­tial PrEP users. By being vis­i­bly present, we want to bet­ter inte­grate PrEP in our com­mu­ni­ty.

Do you want PrEP­nu to be present at your event?Send an email to promotions(at)prepnu.nl

PrEP­nu was at:

Bear Neces­si­ty — 29.12.2018

Fun­house Christ­mas edi­tion — 22.12.2018

MSM Club Church — 13.12.2018

Nation­aal Soa*Hiv*Seks con­gres — 23.11.2018

Fun­house Octo­ber Fest — 13.10.2018

Com­ing out Week Lelystad — 06.10.2018

Church Street Fes­ti­val — 08.09.2018

COC Eind­hoven Cock­tail — 15.09.2018

Gay Pride boat — 04.08.2018

AIDS2018 inter­na­tionale con­fer­en­tie — 23–27.07.2018

Milk­shake 2018 — 28–29.07.2018

Euro­pean PrEP Sum­mit — 09–10.02.2018

World AIDS day / Love dance — 01.12.2017

Waste­land — 25.11.2017

Fun­house — 18.11.2017

Prik Expat PrEPtalk — 07.01.2017

Bear Neces­si­ty — 07.10.2017

Rapi­do — 06.08.2017

Fun­house — 05.08.2017

Milk­shake — 29–30.07.2017

Beert­jes­dag NZ sauna — 24.09.2016

Rapi­do — 07.08.2016

Bear Neces­si­ty — 06.08.2016

Fun­house XXL — 06.08.2016

Inva­sion — 05.08.2016

COC’s Shake­spearclub — 02.08.2016

Roze Maandag Tilburg — 25.07.2016

Pride Amers­foort — 21.07.2016

PrEPnu Workshops:

In July 2017 we estab­lished an open con­sul­ta­tion hour with a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al, for peo­ple who need infor­ma­tion about PrEP. We also helped peo­ple to get PrEP when PrEP was still very expen­sive in Dutch phar­ma­cies. Because of high pop­u­lar­i­ty and lim­it­ed capac­i­ty we tran­si­tioned to (bi)weekly work­shops in Octo­ber 2017. Dur­ing these group con­sul­ta­tions, par­tic­i­pants were informed about what PrEP is and how to use and get it (safe­ly). At these work­shops, both a mem­ber of the gay com­mu­ni­ty and a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al are present, so as to pro­vide accu­rate and under­stand­able infor­ma­tion. By open­ly dis­cussing gen­er­al and sex­u­al health as a group, every­body is able to learn more and reflect on their own health prac­tices.

PrEPnu training for healthcare professionals:

PrEP­nu believes it is impor­tant that more health­care pro­fes­sion­als should become acquaint­ed with PrEP and com­fort­able with pre­scrib­ing it. PrEP­nu was present at sev­er­al train­ings for health­care pro­fes­sion­als, where we pro­vid­ed insight into the moti­va­tion to get on PrEP.

PrEP­nu has had rep­re­sen­ta­tion at the fol­low­ing events for health­care pro­fes­sion­als: